Former Northampton Labour MP Tony Clarke joins Green Party

Tony Clarke, former Labour MP for Northampton, has joined the Green Party. Mr Clarke, a one time rebel Labour MP, is now an independent councillor in his city, and stood for Parliament as an independent in 2010.

Clarke, who was MP for Northampton South from 1997-2005, writes on his blog, in a post entitled “I guess I am one big watermelon”:

“I left the Labour Party, and then discovered that really it had left me, I have battled on as an Independent to try to make a difference for local people and have had some successes, but now it is time to truly give the power back to the people.

For this reason, recently the local Green Party and myself have been holding discussions as to how we might join forces and together offer a real alternative to Castle Ward’s voters and non voters alike,

I have now joined the Green Party as a statement of my commitment to them, they in return have acknowledged my long standing political independence and agreed that we should now both campaign together locally under an “INDEPENDENT GREEN’ banner, and I will stand at the election as a Green Party candidate”.

He goes on to add:

“I am now in a party once again whose policy objectives support high-quality public services run for people not private profit. A party willing to protect the NHS and Post Office from privatisation and return our energy, water and rail networks to public ownership, supporting our education system by providing free school meals, abolishing tuition fees and ensuring all schools are accountable to parents. Committed to separating retail and investment banks and empowering communities with a network of not-for-profit lenders, supporting cooperative, diverse and resilient local economies, reversing the status-seeking wealth concentration that is deepening social divisions and destroying our natural world.”